The perception of time depends not only on the duration of a work. The sensation of time changes based on what we know, what we expect, the vantage point from which we view an event, and how we distribute our attention. An artist can manipulate these parameters to create a specific temporal experience for the viewer while keeping the work’s inherent time structure unchanged.

In this course, students will explore methods for shaping this experience through artistic means: temporal perspective, expectation, anticipation, information delay, shifts in scale, misalignment of temporal positions, and other techniques. Theoretical concepts will be examined through the analysis of artworks and small practical experiments.

The culmination of the course will be an individual artistic project where the viewer’s method of perceiving time becomes an intrinsic part of the artistic concept.

This course is suitable for practicing artists, curators, and students in contemporary art and media art who wish to expand the expressive range of their practice and learn how to work with the viewer’s perception of time. The course assumes that the student already has experience in independent artistic work and basic skills in creating pieces within one or more mediums.

The listener should:

— have a solid understanding of core concepts and practices in contemporary art, including familiarity with the specificities of working with various artistic mediums;

— be capable of independently developing a concept and creating an artwork in one or multiple mediums, articulating their vision, and presenting their own project;

— possess an existing artistic practice or experience working on artistic projects, along with the necessary tools and software;

— preferably, complete the course «Time in Art: The Form of the Work.»

During their studies, students will learn to:

— analyze how an artwork shapes the viewer’s perception of time;

— identify techniques that influence the viewer’s perception of time, attention, and expectation;

— compare different methods of constructing temporal perspective and determine their impact on the artwork’s interpretation;

— apply artistic techniques to create a specific temporal experience;

— design a viewing scenario for a piece, taking into account the viewer’s temporal position;

— experiment with the perception of time and evaluate the resulting viewer experience;

— create an artistic project where the viewer’s perception of time is integrated into both the form and content of the work.

Throughout the course, students will complete the following:

— An analysis of the viewer’s temporal experience, using a work of art as an example, highlighting techniques that shape the sensation of time, attention, and anticipation;

— A comparative analysis of two artworks that utilize different temporal perspectives, determining their influence on interpretation;

— A practical exercise applying artistic techniques to create a specified temporal experience for the viewer;

— A perception script for one’s own artwork, describing the viewer’s temporal position and the presumed sequence of their experience;

— A sketch of an art project in which temporal perspective, scale, information distribution, or the combination of multiple times are used as means to shape the viewer’s experience;

— A final art project where the viewer’s perception of time is integral to the artwork’s form and content.

1. How Time is Structured and How We Experience It
Why experiential time is not the same as clock time. Memory, anticipation, duration, presence, the subjective experience of time. Historical, mythological, astronomical, biographical, ritual, network, and planetary time—the coexistence of multiple temporalities.2. Temporal Perspective: Where We Look From
How art alters the perception of time. The general principle of temporal perspective.3. Temporal Scale
Human, historical, planetary, and other scales of time.4. Archive and Reconstruction5. Multiple Times Simultaneously
The collision of different perceptual positions and scenarios.6. Designing Time Experience
Assembling your own project.